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"Mapping" - an unusual word for many people who have nothing to do with nature conservation or geosciences. What exactly does it mean, for example? "We are mapping breeding birds?" In the geosciences, mapping is a spatial survey of data - in ecology, it usually refers to the recording of certain animal and plant species or communities and their exact location on a map.
For this to succeed, you need above all: a good knowledge of the species, i.e. the ability to clearly recognise and distinguish between different animal and plant species. In addition, you need a good knowledge of the ecology of the species in order to decide when and where and with which method the animals and plants can best be encountered. Technical aids are also often used. To find and identify bats, for example, it makes sense to use a so-called bat detector, i.e. a device that converts the ultrasonic sounds of animals, which are inaudible to our human ears, into audible sounds. In this way, we can not only hear the animals flying in the dark, but also recognise which species they are and even whether they are sounds emitted when searching for food or so-called "social sounds", i.e. courtship sounds or sounds made when rearing young.
Reptiles can be easily attracted with so-called artificial hiding places, under and on which they can stay to warm up. The best time to check reptiles is later in the morning, when it is warm enough for them to move, but not so hot that they are too fast.
The early morning in spring is particularly suitable for identifying birds, when the songbirds can be easily recognised by their typical courtship and territorial songs. However, not all birds are there all year round, and they certainly don't sing all year round. Great tits, for example, start their typical Zi-Zi-Bäh early in the year, but nightingales in our latitudes only return from their winter quarters in May and stop singing again in June. Trying to find this shy and inconspicuous bird in midsummer is extremely difficult. And even with the birds, some aids can be used to make them easier to find. The goldcrest, a very small bird with a very quiet voice, is easy to miss. However, it is quite easy to entice it to respond with a dummy sound. This allows you to recognise whether this species lives in a grove. Incidentally, owls also respond to sound dummies - but only early in the year - and grey partridges - but only in midsummer.
In order to draw up a map of breeding birds or other species groups for an area, some expertise and usually several inspections are required. Standard works define these generally recognised methods. They should only be deviated from in justified exceptional cases.
